Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-18
DAILY HERALD.
HYPNOTISM IN PARIS.
The Matter Discussed from 9
RIedicO.Legal standpoint.

Medico-Legal standpoint.
To THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:
The phenomena of hypnotism are
attracting public attention throughout
the world, but especially in France.
Important cases have lately come
within the domain of medical juris-
prudence. The article, "What is
Hypnotism ?" in to-day's HERALD
prompts the undersigned respectfully
to cali the attention of your readers
interested in this subject to a recent
Paris publication entitled LHypno-
fisme en- Point de Vue Medico-Legdt, by
DIR. La Tourette.
That treaties more than 500 pages
long should discuss, and commend as
a pressing need, the recognition OF
hypnotism by the French code, GER
tainly shows that the subject is In a
very advanced stage, inasmuch as the
law of the land is usually the last
stronghold into which new conclu-
sion of science forces a passage. AS
in the British and American records
of mesmerism there appears to be no
case betokening any necessity 1or
legislation and as, if any danger eX,
listed, legislation in this country could
only be obtained either by popular
agitation, which is unlikely at this
time, or by an agitation of medical
experts in the subject, who are here
very few in number, it is fair to say
that the question to which DIR. La
Tourette voluminouslv devotes him
self, is not yet an American interest.
Still, our courts of judicature may
sometime have to take cognizance OF
the phenomena under consideration.
To students of hypotism it is one OF
the most familiar of truths that per-
son on whom a command has been
impressed during the trance, will often
perform it afterward, how ever out OF
place or ridiculous it may be. The
fact at once suggests two important
questions, one practical and the
other psychological: l. What limits
If any, can be assigned to the opera
tors influence in this respect? Could
the awakened "subject" be made to
do things completely alien to his natu-
raj character-e. G., to commit CRIME
which would never have spontaneously
have occurred to him? (2) In what
state is his mind during the time that
the command is being executed?
The main purpose of DIR. La Tourette
is to reassure the world against the
fear of crimes that might be commit
ted under the influence of hypnotic or
post-hypnotic suggestion" The
strength of his reinsurance depends
on proposition which he shares with
the rest of the Paris school, as
against English medical dissenters,
but which vitiates, if untenable,
nearly the whole of his optimism.
Briefly stated, it is that all these
artificially-produced mental and bodily
states are nSrreses, or as we should
say, pathological, that an hypnotic
subject is patient, and generally has
either hysteria or its germs, which re-
newed hypnotizing tends to bring out
and that the phenomena of natural
somnambulism, OF hypnotism or
Braidism provoked on persons appar-
emily in sound health, are all varieties
of the same fatal effection-hysteria.
The next division of DIR. La Tour
ette's work, curious complication,
deals with unlawful acts committed
spontaneously by natural somnam-
bulists, and the sensible conclusion
arrived at is that they should be ac-
quilted, but also watched, as ire
sponsible, since they recollect their
act, if at all, as dream. A German
scientist, in a learned disquisition,
has taken pains to show that persons
can be made under the influence of
suggestion, to commit, both during
or after hypnotism, crimes; to forget
both who the suggester was and their
own act, and even sincerely to throw
suspicion on some third person. DR..
La Tourette dismisses all such expert
ments as "purely of the laboratory
and points to the manifold chances of
Illustration in real life through some
slip in the programme enjoined by the
hypnotizer, or through the subject
managing to resist, evade or disclose
the injunction. In Jean Mornos, Cla-
retie's crudely-wrought story, the sub
iect commits theft and murder at the
suggestion of her guilty lover, and
will not reveal his name to justice un-
til re-hypnotized and made to re-live
the experience, somewhat like the
somnambulist in The Noonstone. The
comment seems, that no man should
be considered guilty when thus de-
nounced without almost as strong in
dependent evidence as would be needed
if he had not been thus denounced at all.
1t would be quite easy for the guilty
hypnotizer to have foreseen this pro-
cedure, and to have instilled a sugges-
ton to denounce an innocent person
in case of justice adopting it. Theo-
retically, indeed, there is no limit to
the duel fought between justice and
the criminal in the soul Of the unwit-
ting accomplice, but practically justice,
having the last work, would imperil
the criminal considerably. One point
to settle would be the extent to which
subsequent counter-suggestions by JUS
tice could annul forgetfulness 'sug-
gested" by the criminal. Another
question justice might have to face is,
Gould this person have been hypnot-
lied for the first time against his will ?"
The doctor suggests that by ruse he
might. Now, the methods for turning
common into hypnotic sleep bear ON
the point, and are discussed by the
British writer's, with whose researches
DIR. La Tourette betrays no acquaint-
ance. DR.. Baird and others agree that
this is feasible, and DR.. VIM. Bissell,
of London, by putting his hand on
the heads of five workmen sleeping
normally developed hypnotic symp-
toms. He says, curiously, that if con-
seriousness persists after the passage
into abnormal sleep, the sleeper wakes,
when let alone, from normal into hyp-
motto sleep; but if consciousness
has not persisted, he wakes
into normal life. The point is not
settled, but it is evident how the
question might arise in a judicial in
quiry whether a person could prove
1nWittinply irresponsible. Till the